WGA Picket Lines Swell with Solidarity and Cautious Optimism as AMPTP Contract Talks Go a Third Day with CEOs
variety.comWGA picket lines on the West Coast swelled Friday in response to the call from guild leaders for a strong turnout on the streets as labor and management negotiators gathered for a third consecutive day of talks aimed at ending the more than four-month-long strike.
In Hollywood, Netflix and Paramount saw big crowds of WGA and SAG-AFTRA pickets gathered by 9 a.m. The past week has been chock full of rumors spread by social media and private online and text channels that a deal is in the offing.
In West Los Angeles, a typically large crowd made the rounds outside of Fox Studios. Many WGA veterans urged caution at getting hopes too high for what may come out of the AMPTP negotiating room later today, after a third day of talks between labor and management that involved four CEOs. “I’m a realist,” said Amy Berg, a showrunner and WGA strike captain who has dubbed herself the “Lot Mom” of Fox Studios. “You want it to be done.
But at the same time, we’ve gone through this before. A few weeks ago that everyone heard on a Friday that the strike was suddenly over, and that wasn’t the case.” As a former negotiating committee member herself, Berg also noted that the contract bargaining process is a slog that doesn’t move quickly and can be tricky to navigate under pressure.
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